10 Children’s Charities in the UK: What They Do and How to Support Them
Children’s charities in the UK support young people through health concerns, education, family support, child protection, and more. If you want to help children or young people but aren’t sure where to start, you’re not alone.
This guide will take you through 10 UK children’s charities, covering what each focuses on and the support it provides. They’re listed alphabetically, rather than ranked, so you can decide which matches the type of support you’re looking to back.
What do children’s charities support?
Children’s charities cover a lot of ground, from preventing abuse to tackling poverty. Some will offer family and practical support, while others will focus on funding research and care for children with serious illnesses. Other causes are dedicated to ensuring every child has an adequate education, or supporting those with disabilities, including humanitarian work for children overseas in areas of conflict.
There are so many organisations that work across several of these areas at once, too, so it’s best to think of them as a starting point rather than a strict category. Understanding the different areas charities work in can help you work out which charity’s focus aligns most closely with your interests.
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Child protection and safeguarding
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Family and practical support
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Poverty and disadvantage
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Health, illness and disability
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Education and children’s rights
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Mental health support
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Humanitarian and international work
If you want to check out other causes that you think could align well with what you’re passionate about, take a look at our how to help guide here.
10 children’s charities at a glance
Here’s a quick way to explore some of the UK’s children’s charities that you can support on JustGiving. This isn’t every charity working with children, and each of these does far more than a single sentence can cover.
Action for Children
Protects and supports children and young people in local communities across the UK through practical, emotional and family support.
Barnardo’s
Supports children, young people and families across the UK with specialist services that help them feel safe and supported.
Centrepoint
Supports young people at risk of or experiencing homelessness with housing, health, learning and employment.
Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity
Helps Great Ormond Street Hospital support seriously ill children through facilities, equipment, research and family support.
NSPCC
Works to prevent child abuse and support children across the UK and Channel Islands through services, campaigning and child protection.
Rainbow Trust Children’s Charity
Provides practical and emotional support to families caring for a child with a serious or life-threatening illness.
Save the Children
Helps children in the UK and around the world stay safe, healthy and learning through a range of services.
The Children’s Society
Supports young people facing abuse, exploitation, neglect and other serious challenges, while campaigning on issues affecting young people.
UNICEF UK
Protects children’s rights and supports children worldwide through health, education, protection and humanitarian work.
YoungMinds
Supports children, young people and their families with mental health information, advice, support and campaigning.
10 children’s charities you can support through JustGiving
Here’s a closer look at 10 meaningful children’s charities you can support through JustGiving. They’re listed alphabetically, not ranked, and your right fit will depend on what you care about most.
Action for Children
Action for Children supports children, young people, and families in local communities right across the UK. Its work covers practical, emotional, and family support, from early years services to help for young people leaving care and those in need of emergency aid. They also offer carer support, anti-homelessness help and mental health support. Alongside its direct services, the charity also campaigns for policy change that benefits children and families more widely.
Explore Action for Children on JustGiving.
Barnardo’s
Barnardo’s supports children, young people, and families through specialist services delivered across the UK. Its work spans areas including fostering and adoption, disability support, and services for young people who’ve experienced abuse or exploitation. The wide range of services means Barnardo’s can offer support tailored to many circumstances.
Explore Barnardo’s on JustGiving.
Centrepoint
Centrepoint supports young people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. Its help covers services like providing housing and offering health, learning, and employment support. Centrepoint focuses specifically on 16-25-year-olds, where homelessness can derail education and work prospects early.
Explore Centrepoint on JustGiving.
Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity
This charity funds support for seriously ill children treated at Great Ormond Street Hospital, covering facilities, equipment, research, and family support. It’s a separate organisation from the hospital itself but supports the patient care that GOSH has become known for. The hospital has been a specialist centre for children’s healthcare since the 1850s, which is part of why its name is so widely recognised today.
Explore Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity on JustGiving.
NSPCC
The NSPCC works to prevent child abuse and support children across the UK who have been affected by it. They campaign for a stronger child protection policy and run programmes to help adults spot and respond to signs of abuse. Protecting children from harm, and helping them to reclaim their lives after the fact, sits at the centre of everything the NSPCC does.
Rainbow Trust Children’s Charity
Rainbow Trust provides practical and emotional support to families caring for a child with a serious or life-threatening illness. Its family support workers help with a range of services, from hospital visits to giving parents a break, while also supporting siblings who are affected too. The focus on the whole family, rather than the child alone, is a distinctive part of this charity’s approach.
Explore Rainbow Trust Children’s Charity on JustGiving.
Save the Children
Save the Children works both in the UK and internationally to help children stay safe, healthy, and in education. In the UK, it runs early years and literacy programmes in disadvantaged areas, while its international work spans health, education, and emergency response during crises such as conflict, humanitarian emergencies and natural disasters. They also work to prevent abuse, exploitation, and trafficking and treat malnutrition, with programmes focused on helping children stay safe, healthy and learning.
Explore Save the Children on JustGiving.
The Children’s Society
The Children’s Society supports young people facing abuse, exploitation, neglect, and poverty, alongside campaigning for changes to the law and policy that affect them. It’s particularly known for its work on child exploitation and its care for young runaways, providing them with mental health and emotional support. Campaigning sits alongside frontline services as a core part of how this charity works.
Explore The Children’s Society on JustGiving.
UNICEF UK
UNICEF UK is a children’s charity that protects children’s rights and supports children worldwide through health, education, and humanitarian work. It’s part of a global UN organisation, which means its programmes span emergency response during and after conflict or natural disasters, vaccinations, and clean water access across many countries. This charity is not UK-only but works internationally to support children worldwide.
Explore UNICEF UK on JustGiving.
YoungMinds
YoungMinds supports children, young people, and their families with mental health information, advice, and campaigning. It provides guidance for parents worried about a child’s mental health, as well as resources aimed directly at young people themselves. The charity aims to support and empower young people through whatever difficulties their lives hold.
How to choose a children’s charity to support
With so many children’s charities working to help children in different ways, choosing one comes down to which one you align with most, rather than finding a single best option.
To figure out which children’s charity you want to support, consider which issue matters most to you. Some charities focus on child protection, others on health, education, or mental health, so start with whichever cause resonates the most.
You can also think about whether you want to support work in the UK, like the NSPCC, for example, or international efforts, like those that UNICEF and Save the Children commit to.
Do you prefer direct services, campaigning, research, or a mixture? Some charities run frontline support, while others focus more on changing policies or conducting research. Many charities deliver multiple or all of these, but it’s worth thinking about what you want to support most.
Finally, what does the charity say donations help fund? Most charities publish this on their own site, so it’s worth a quick read before you decide.
There’s no ‘best children’s charity to donate to’, so feel free to take a look at what each charity says about its work and go with whichever feels like the right fit for you.
Ways to support a children’s charity
However you want to help, there’s more than one route to supporting your chosen children’s charity.
Donating directly through a charity’s JustGiving profile is the simplest way to start. Every charity in this guide has a profile you can give to in just a few clicks.
Fundraising is another way to support a children’s charity while helping raise awareness for a cause. For this, you could run, bake, host an event or set a personal challenge, be it by yourself, with friends, or in the office. It can be a way to bring friends, family, colleagues or communities together in support of a cause. If that sounds like something you’re interested in, take a look at our fundraising ideas guide here, or, if you’re looking at something for young ones to get involved with too, check out our fundraising for kids guide here.
Support doesn’t have to mean money, either. You could volunteer your time directly with a charity or simply share reliable information from the organisation itself to help others understand its work. Every bit of support adds up, no matter what form it takes.
Ready to get started? Create your own fundraising page today.
Children’s charities: your questions answered
If you want to support a children’s charity but still have a few questions, just take a look below:
What is the largest children’s charity in the UK?
Barnardo’s describes itself as the largest children’s charity in the UK, supporting children, young people, and families throughout the country. The largest can be measured in different ways when thinking about charities, so it’s always worth looking beyond size or scale alone when deciding which one’s work aligns most with you.
What is the oldest children’s charity in the UK?
Coram is the UK’s oldest children’s charity, with roots going back to its origins at The Foundling Hospital in 1739. Today, the Coram group continues to support children and young people through mental health initiatives, family support, education assistance, legal advice and more.
Which charities let you sponsor a child?
Charities including World Vision UK, ActionAid UK, and Compassion UK all run child sponsorship programmes. Each works differently in how donations go to support children and communities and how sponsors stay connected with their sponsored child, though, so it’s worth checking how a programme works before signing up.
Which children’s charities support children worldwide?
International children’s charities such as UNICEF UK and Save the Children support children around the world through work focused on health, education, protection and humanitarian support.
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